Friday, June 22, 2018

Please Listen to the Story of a Stolen Child




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Thursday, June 21, 2018

Bruce Springsteen On Broadway Calls Trump's Child Snatching: "Shockingly and disgracefully inhumane."

by Gregg Chadwick

This week in New York, Bruce Springsteen added a powerful call to action to his Broadway show:

We are seeing things right now on our American borders that are so shockingly and disgracefully inhumane and un-American that it is simply enraging. And we have heard people in high position in the American government blaspheme in the name of God and country that it is a moral thing to assault the children amongst us. May God save our souls.  
Bruce Springsteen On Broadway Calls the Nation to Attention Over Trump's Inhumane Border Snatching (full audio below)
I never believed that people come to my shows, or rock shows to be told anything.
But I do believe that they come to be reminded of things. To be reminded of who they are, at their most joyous, at their deepest, when life feels full. It's a good place to get in touch with your heart and your spirit, to be amongst the crowd. And to be reminded of who we are and who we can be collectively. Music does those things pretty well sometimes, particularly these days when some reminding of who we are and who we can be isn't such a bad thing. 
That weekend of the March for our Lives, we saw those young people in Washington, and citizens all around the world, remind us of what faith in America and real faith in American democracy looks and feels like. It was just encouraging to see all those people out on the street and all that righteous passion in the service of something good. And to see that passion was alive and well and still there at the center of the beating heart of our country. 
It was a good day, and a necessary day because we are seeing things right now on our American borders that are so shockingly and disgracefully inhumane and un-American that it is simply enraging. And we have heard people in high position in the American government blaspheme in the name of God and country that it is a moral thing to assault the children amongst us. May God save our souls. 
There's the beautiful quote by Dr. King that says, "the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice." Now, there have been many, many days of recent when you could certainly have an argument over that. But I've lived long enough to see that in action and to put some faith in it. But I've also lived long enough to know that arc doesn't bend on its own. It needs all of us leaning on it, nudging it in the right direction day after day. You gotta keep, keep leaning.
I think it's important to believe in those words, and to carry yourself, and to act accordingly. It's the only way that we keep faith and keep our sanity.
I've played this show 146 nights with basically the same setlist, but tonight calls for something different...
Men walking 'long the railroad tracks
Going someplace and there's no going back
Highway patrol choppers coming up over the ridge
Hot soup on a campfire under the bridge
Shelter line stretching 'round the corner
Welcome to the new world order
Families sleeping in their cars in the southwest
No home, no job, no peace, no rest

 Well the highway is alive tonight
But nobody's kidding nobody about where it goes
I'm sitting down here in the campfire light
Searching for the ghost of Tom Joad

 He pulls a prayer book out of his sleeping bag
Preacher lights up a butt and he takes a drag
Waiting for when the last shall be first and the first shall be last
In a cardboard box 'neath the underpass
You got a one-way ticket to the promised land
You got a hole in your belly and a gun in your hand
Sleeping on a pillow of solid rock
Bathing in the city aqueduct

 And the highway is alive tonight
Where it's headed everybody knows
I'm sitting down here in the campfire light
Waiting on the ghost of Tom Joad

 Tom said, "Mom, wherever there's a cop beating a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there's a fight against the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me, Mom, I'll be there
Where there's somebody fighting for a place to stand
Or a decent job or a helping hand
Wherever somebody's struggling to be free
Look in their eyes, Mom, you'll see me"

 The highway is alive tonight
But nobody's kidding nobody about where it goes
I'm sitting down here in the campfire light
With the ghost of old Tom Joad


Springsteen on Broadway - June 19, 2018 - The Ghost Of Tom Joad from docinwestchester on Vimeo.
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Wednesday, June 20, 2018

Despite Today's Executive Order, Trump's Concentration Camps are Set to Grow

by Gregg Chadwick


Gregg Chadwick
Family Values
(Chinga la Migra)
24"x36" oil on linen 2018


 Our protests against Trump's horrific Migrant Family Separation Policy are working.

As Rolling Stone reports,"The chaos that preceded the order's signing is further proof that nearly every move the administration makes is improvised, and that there has never been any real plan for how to deal with immigration other than projecting strength to tide over his base while the White House tries to figure out how to deliver the long-promised border wall. To Trump, signing the order is an act of weakness, and his claim that he's doing it because of how "important" it is to keep families together is as big of a lie as any of the many he's offered up since taking office."
The order itself was put together so quickly that when it was first posted online, its title was misspelled.

 But we must keep up the pressure.

As outlined below, the Executive Order that Trump signed today is problematic. Senator Chris Murphy implores us not to get sucked into a moral vortex where something less than diabolically evil is somehow acceptable. If the new policy puts kids and parents in cages indefinitely that’s better than kids in cages alone, but still illegal and immoral. 
As the ADL reports,"The new 'zero tolerance' EO is not a solution to the crisis at the border & does not represent humane treatment of migrants. The solution to family separation is not indefinite family detention. Children do not belong in jail." 
To make matters worse, sources including Reveal are reporting that a number of migrant children who have already been torn from their parents are being given psychotropic drugs without consent from a parent.






As Yogi Berra said...."It ain't over till it's over."

Folks it ain't over. We have barely started fighting this abomination!

 Analysis of Executive Order: 1. The plan is to keep families detained indefinitely together, which is illegal.

 Zoe Tillman in Buzzfeed says,"The order directs the Department of Homeland of Security to keep families detained together, but any long-term enforcement of the order is contingent on a judge approving changes to the 1997 Flores Settlement Agreement that restricts the detention of children. The administration can detain families together for up to 20 days — a deadline based on earlier court rulings interpreting the 1997 settlement — but then will have to separate them absent action by a judge or Congress."

 Human Rights First explains that the Flores Settlement Agreement imposed several obligations on U.S. immigration authorities.
The government is required to release children from immigration detention without unnecessary delay to, in order of preference, parents, other adult relatives, or licensed programs willing to accept custody.
If a suitable placement is not immediately available, the government is obligated to place children in the “least restrictive” setting appropriate to their age and any special needs.
The government must implement standards relating to the care and treatment of children in immigration detention.
2. Trump would like the courts or Congress to make that not illegal. 3. If Congress or the judiciary doesn't change the law, families will continue to be separated.
Unanswered Questions: 1. What, if anything, will be done to unite thousands of children with their parents?
This Executive Order in no way deals with reuniting the 2,300 children who have been torn away from their parents and remain separated. When will they see their parents again? They must be reunited immediately.
Jacqueline Alemany has learned that an "HHS official has told @weijia that there will NOT be special efforts made to reunite children who have already been separated from their families bc of the Zero Tolerance Policy, despite Trumps EO."


2. Where will all these families be housed? (See below) 3. What happens if the courts or Congress don't change the law?

Horrifying Development:

 The order literally directs the Department of Defense to "construct" massive camps to detain these migrant families indefinitely. Zoe Tillman in Buzzfeed explains,"The Pentagon is looking at four US bases to house unaccompanied children and detained immigrant families, although the Department of Health and Human Services would be in charge of caring for them — Fort Bliss, Goodfellow Air Force Base and Dyess Air Force Base in Texas, and Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas."
How to Fight Back:
Make A Plan to March: Major protest to Keep Families Together on June 30th in Washington and communities around the country. Go to familiesbelongtogether.org to plug into events. All hands on deck NOW to end this brutality and move towards freedom for all: kids AND their families.
  • How to Fight Back – Pressure Congress
Call, email, tweet Congress. Your two Senators and one Representative are in the best position to force the administration to abandon this new policy. Please contact them and ask them to immediately stop the separation of children from their parents at the border. Also ask them to support bills that will help reunited children already taken from their parents and also prohibit future removals. These include the Senate’s HELP Separated Children Act and Keep Families Together Act. 
Child’s World America, a member-based, 501(c)3 nonprofit organization committed to improving children’s lives in the U.S., reminds us:
"We find ourselves again upon a time where we will one day utter “how could we have let that happen?” We cannot afford to forget that there is a history of separating children from their parents: during slave auctions; during the forced assimilation of American Indians; and during the Holocaust. The reverberations of these barbaric stains on our history are still felt today and future generations of these original victims will inherit the intergenerational transmission of these traumas. To try and argue that this policy of ripping children from their parents at the border is somehow different from the systematic traumatization of children during the times of slavery, forced assimilation, and the Holocaust is to disregard history. To somehow convince ourselves that this systematic traumatization of children has no bearing on the lives of these children and no impact on the legacy of our country is to be living in an alternate universe. And to not care about the impact these policies have on these children is to succumb to the worst potential of humanity."
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has introduced The Keep Families Together Act (S.3036) which currently has 49 co-sponsors and is supported by American Academy of Pediatrics, Kids In Need of Defense (KIND), Young Center for Immigrant Rights and the Women’s Refugee Commission.  Please call your Senators today and tell them you want them to support this bill.

The ACLU offers a script for calling the Senate - Link Here.
Find their contact info at Contacting Congress or at Call Congress.
Also, you can contact ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) directly. Write to them here or call them at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE.
TIP: If your Senators or Representative aren’t on board, explain that you will call back regularly for updates on this issue. Then, tell them that this issue is so important to you, that if they do not act to end the separation of children from their parents, that you will actively work to get their opponent elected in November by raising money and speaking to every constituent you can get in front of.

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Pelosi, Democrats condemn separation of families at border

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Monday, June 18, 2018

Listen to the Children in Trump's Concentration Camps and Then Act!



Published on Jun 18, 2018
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